Narrowing it down to broaden results: Hyper-personalized target audience for growth hacking

When the term growth hacking began to be trendy lingo in our ears, it was likely to be accompanied by successful examples of referral systems like Airbnb or Tesla. Growth hacking goes beyond that strategy. The referral tactic is, in fact, one of the many items in the growth toolbox.

Growth hacking is about experimentation, followed by testing, analysis of results, and improvements for the next iteration. However, growth hacking is no guesswork. It is about delving into your business' data and spotting opportunities so you know where and how to apply your efforts.

How can you implement and experiment if you don't know where? We previously talked about comprehensive market research and how it allows you to unlock the opportunity of finding a sweet spot. You can reach that through a hyper-personalized approach to your audience analysis.

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Going beyond the 'Dream Persona': qualitative judgment + consistent data for the hyper-personalization process

Hyper-personalization aims to go beyond the ideal customer profile. Buyer personas are a beneficial tool for your segmentation process, although sometimes it can lead you to create a 'dream persona': a projection of who you want your customer to be.

Widespread inferences such as demographics, psychographics, and geographics are the first step in your hyper-personalization process. Remember that B2B customer profiles differentiate from B2C, and you should include inferences such as the business' size and who is responsible for the decision-making because it can involve multiple people.

• Tip: Regularly review your ideal customer profile. As you interact with customers, you should be able to collect more pieces of information about them. Look into the analytics for possible hints, particularly their interests and if they come to your website through mobile or desktop. Moreover, look for insights through your sales team since they interact directly with your customer base.
• Tip 2: Check out our white paper on hyper-personalization.

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Time to delve into your target's goals, obstacles, and problems

Once you have elaborated on solid ground with the customer profile, it is time to go deeper into hyper-personalization: identifying customers' goals, obstacles, and problems.

Let's have a simplified simulation here with real estate. Why do people buy residences? If you think further or conduct research, you might discover that people have different goals when buying a house or an apartment. A young couple might do it to get rid of rent, and an older person who already has property might do it to rent out.

As you analyze people's goals for buying property, you can unlock their obstacles: in the first case, renting costs a lot of money, and in the second case, the hurdle could be that the pension is insufficient.

Always try to go under the surface when pinpointing your audience's problems. Instead of looking into the obvious, understand their subjective and philosophical problems.

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What are subjective and philosophical problems?

Subjective problems are matters that are less generalized and more personal that are charged with big emotional drive. If a person buys a house to rent out because the pension is insufficient, financial security is the deeper root problem.

Philosophical problems are more transcendental. They go beyond the individual and tap into their sense of belonging to something bigger, like a community or a lifestyle. Think of conscious buyers, most of, if not all, their decisions are driven by the way they see the world should be.

If your product or service can solve those problems, you are on the right path toward hyper-personalization.

At this point, I must reiterate: this is not guesswork. To identify your customer's subjective and philosophical problems, you must obtain insights directly from them. Hear what your sales and customer service departments have to say, survey or interview some key customers to find commonalities.

• Tip: Make no mistake. Whether being a B2C or a B2B, we deal with people at the end of the day, and considering that can make a big difference when you tackle hyper-personalization. Your product or service may solve a practical problem of a business, but a person or people make the final decision.  

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Be present where your audience frequents

The more you know about your audience, the better chances you have to find more specific places where your audience hangs out. The key here is going deep into their interests and hobbies: What do they read? Who or what do they follow? What is their lifestyle?

In these technological days, it may require some boldness to step out of the usual social media environment and even go offline, but finding those specific places means qualitative brand presence and additional opportunities to obtain valuable insights, and a huge payoff at the end of the day.

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Learn about your competitors as much as you can

Hyper-personalization combines going deep into your audience's mind with having a leg up on the competition. If you want to have that little edge over the other players, learning what you can about them is top of the list. You should identify what they do best, what works for them, and their improvement points.

"But how can I do that?" - you may ask. We touched the surface of it in our article on market research. Here we can go more in-depth about these ways:

• Third-party data: Finding reports on the field you are active in might be a first step in getting information on other players in the market. Look into their market share, their financial reports, etc.

• Their website: Chances are high that your competitors have an online presence. Checking their websites helps you understand their branding, tone of voice, downloadable content, and sales funnel.

• Their social media: Social media is a part of the online presence. Check the platforms the other brands are using. Look not only for the engagement figures (followers, likes, number of comments) but also for how the interaction goes between them and their audience.

• Their customer service: Get insights from being directly in touch with them. Check how smoothly their online chat assistant works or how it is to have a call with them.

Knowing about those bits and pieces can help you identify where you can shine brighter and deliver a unique value proposition.

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A sweet spot ahead?

Now that you have acquired in-depth knowledge about your audience, competitors, and hopefully your brand, it is time to look for a sweet spot in the market. This is a direct gateway to your audience and where you can apply efforts for growth.

It will be something you do that no one else is doing, at the exact place where your audience is, and in the way that they want to hear about it. It is not as simple as it sounds, but that is when growth hacking comes into play to assist. The tweaking and testing will help you fine-tune your labor.

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In conclusion

Hyper-personalization is a journey. It takes time, effort, and constant review to keep it working. But the endeavor pays off with growth hacking techniques, where laser-focused actions can harness the best results for your business.

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